"Brilliant Ultimatum" was originally posted on December 4, 2013, and voted into the Archive on February 26th, 2014. Inspired by the card Brilliant Ultimatum, this piece is a retelling and expansion on the story of the fabricated, filigreed, and fatal land of Esper, one of the five shards of the plane of Alara. One of the few stories in the M:EM Archive to feature a canon character, "Brilliant Ultimatum" features Tezzeret as he searches for the secret of etherium on his native plane. This story was the third in Barinellos's "Ultimatum" cycle. The first was "Violent Ultimatum," which was written for Fragments, the M:EM's Alara Anthology, and the second is "Cruel Ultimatum."

"Instinct" was originally posted on March 21st, 2016, and was voted into the Archive on May 2nd, 2016. The story stars Daneera, the interplanar huntress, as she finds herself in the expansive Bladǎri forest on the plane of Morvata. There, she helps a good friend through an important and difficult moment, which leads her on a different sort of quest unlike any she had been on before. Daneera debuted in "Planes of the Dual-Walkers," and continued her story through RuwinReborn's "How to Trade a Planeswalker" and into The War of the Wheel.

So, I should talk a little about this story. Daneera is, technically speaking, my first character for the M:EM. Created in and for the same story as the Dual-Walkers, Syl and Chardis, she appears first, and is the protagonist. Although I wrote "Planes of the Dual-Walkers" before I was a M:EMber, it was my first short story set in the Magic Multiverse (I had written poems before, but not stories). And Daneera, being the hero of my first MTG-themed story, always had a special place in my heart. And of course, she eventually because one of the primary protagonists in The War of the Wheel, another thing I've done that I'm very proud of.

So, flash forward to more than a year after WotW was finished. I had written follow-up stories for Denner, for Syl and Chardis, and Kahr had a story set afterward, but I had not revisited Daneera yet. More than that, I started to realize that Daneera did not have any story arc that or even any story that was not directly related to the Dual-Walkers. So what I really wanted was for Daneera to have a story that was truly hers, one that did not involve the Dual-Walkers in any way.

My first idea, which I ended up scrapping and parting out like a beat up old car, was very different. It was not a "love" story the way "Instinct" sort of became. Instead, I had thought of the idea of pairing Daneera with Aria. The story focused around the idea of a Fae noble using a powerful control spell (this may sound familiar to anyone who has read the "Instinct" arc). But, instead of controlling the minds of beasts of the forest, he would be controlling the minds of other Fae. Aria, being a Fae but from a different plane, would have been either unaffected or only slightly or temporarily affected, and she and Daneera would have gone on to defeat the noble and free the Fae.

I honestly don't remember why I scrapped this idea, but I remember that I did so before even approaching Tevish about a possible collab. It may have had something to do with Aria getting her story where she meets Mari, but I don't truly remember. Whatever the reason, I dropped the idea and put the thought of a Daneera story on hold for a while.

I distinctly remember shoveling snow one day when the idea came back to me. I started thinking about what kind of story I wanted to tell with Daneera, and I sort of realized that at no time in all the stories I had told of her, including everything that happens throughout WotW, did I ever go into the issue of Daneera's love life. This got me thinking about what kind of significant other she would go for, and it took relatively little time to come to the answer: a wild one. She would want a partner that was at least as connected to nature and to their animalistic side as she was. And that led me to a werewolf.

However, Daneera, being a highly practical character and seemingly uninterested in romance, needed some reason why she would go and try to find a significant other in the first place. This one took me a little while, but again, I started thinking about 's philosophy and their slice of the color pie. Eventually, what I hit on was what became the title of this piece: Instinct. Daneera is very tied to the animals that she frankly prefers to humans. So, I started thinking about different kinds of instincts. I thought first of an animal's instinctive urge to reproduce, and that led me to think of maternal instinct. I then realized that Daneera's maternal instinct had already been established, both in WotW and even all the way back in "Planes of the Dual-Walkers," with her relationship with the child Lem.

So there, I had my set pieces. Daneera would experience "something" that would sort of trigger her maternal instinct. This became her helping her wolf friend Shuru birth her litter, which gets her thinking, first instinctually and then intellectually, about having a child. This leads her on her search to find an ideal mate, somehow who can provide her with a strong, healthy child. At first, Daneera had no intention of staying with Kerik. But whatever else Daneera is, and however much she identifies with the beasts of the forest, she is still human, and, surprising even to her, she ends up really coming to care for, to love, Kerik.

But of course, the other thing Daneera is, sadly, is one of my characters. And that means that life doesn't get to be easy for her. I still liked the idea of the Fae noble controlling things he shouldn't be, and that kicks off the story arc that follows "Instinct." "Control" sees Kerik taken away from Daneera and placed beyond her grasp. "Title" and "Untitled," (two of my favorite names for stories I've ever written, by the way) go into her struggle to get him back. Is Daneera still simply interested in having a strong child, or is there something more there now? Personally, I tend to take Daneera at her word when she tells Kerik that she loves him. It was certainly a long road to get there.

Phantoms of the Past is a novella written and released in sections by Tevish Szat. The first incarnation of the story began as an audience participation project wherein Tevish would write part of a section, and then allow the readers to vote on something that would change the remainder of the section. This story was originally posted on September 1st, 2014. The final section was posted on April 17th, 2015, and the entire story was voted into the Archive on May 10th, 2015. This story introduces several new characters into the M:EM canon, of which so far only Dantalion has appeared in other works.

After three full years, and 156 different M:EM pieces reM:EMbered, I have decided to stop running this thread. I originally proposed and created Highlighted M:EMories because I felt like we were only really talking about new works, which makes perfect sense and is not a fault of anyone, but I wanted a venue in which we could talk about older works with new perspectives. And while there were many weeks where nothing came of the selected work, in general I think this thread accomplished that. It's been really fascinating for me to see people revisit their work or reveal some behind-the-scenes information about it, and I hope other people have gotten as much enjoyment out of it.

I would like to thank everyone who has participated in this thread over the last three years. Obviously, there is no way I would have kept this up if people weren't doing stuff with it, so it's been good to see. Also, it is not as though I am "closing" this thread or anything, so if people still want to post here in the coming weeks and months, by all means do so. I started this thread and I've been running it, but it is by no means "mine," so if anyone feels strongly about keeping it going and wants to take over, go right ahead.

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